Use of automotive, and other, vehicles has long been a primary means of transportation in many parts of the world. Entire industries have been developed, and are in place, relating to the manufacturing and servicing of automotive vehicles. And, many aspects of vehicular use are ingrained into modern culture. Selection of vehicles for purchase and for transport is oftentimes not merely based upon utilitarian considerations but also for stylistic and status considerations.
In just North America, many millions of vehicles are manufactured and sold every year. And many millions more are operated regularly.
Traffic congestion is a regular problem in many areas, particularly during morning and evening commutes. Traffic control and monitoring is regularly made, if not to alleviate congestion, at least to report thereon. Various traffic monitoring and traffic control mechanisms are conventionally used. Many of such mechanisms rely upon visual observation by an observer to view the traffic conditions or patterns. While sometimes entirely adequate, the viewing of the traffic generally requires daylight conditions or lighting conditions that permit the viewing of the vehicular traffic.
Monitoring and identification of vehicles are required pursuant to other functions, for instance, security control at an enterprise, or other, facility. Security at a facility is sometimes provided by limiting the ingress and egress of vehicular traffic to the facility. A security gate, or other access control mechanism, is utilized by which to prevent vehicular entry into, and egress out of, the facility. In various security gate systems, identification of the vehicle is confirmed prior to grant of permission to an operator of the vehicle to enter or leave the facility. The identification is typically visually made, sometimes together with confirmation of the viewed identification with a registry of vehicles permitted in and out of the facility.
Various other vehicular-related functions require the identification of vehicles and yet others would benefit from, or be possible if, vehicular identifications would be more easily obtainable without reliance upon eyesight viewing of the vehicles for their identification.
A significant majority of the vehicles operated in most areas are manufactured by a limited number of manufacturers. While collectively, such manufacturers manufacture and market a relatively significant number of different vehicles, the number is a finite and readily obtainable number. And, different models exhibit identifiable characteristics. Each of the different models has, for instance, common contours, shapes, configurations, and other characteristics, due to their common manufacturer, and typically, use of commonly-supplied or manufactured component parts. Vehicular headlight assemblies are amongst the component parts of vehicles that, for a particular model, are generally of common type, manufactured by a common manufacturer and exhibitive of common characteristics.
If better advantage could be taken of the common characteristics of vehicles of common manufacture and model-type, improved identification and identification-related functionalities would be possible.
It is in light of this background information related to automotive, and other, vehicles that the following disclosure is made.